<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>I Was A Lonely Soul by Missoutontheprize</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25676137">I Was A Lonely Soul</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missoutontheprize/pseuds/Missoutontheprize'>Missoutontheprize</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Succession (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>CW: Brief Allusion to Sexual Violence, CW: Pregnancy Loss, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Internal Monologue, One Shot, Pre-Canon, Relationship Study, Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:22:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,501</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25676137</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missoutontheprize/pseuds/Missoutontheprize</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A pre-canon exploration into the lives and minds of Waystar power couple Shiv and Tom, sappier than you've seen them before. Set Christmas Eve 2017.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Siobhan "Shiv" Roy/Tom Wambsgans</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Was A Lonely Soul</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My take on the foundation and nuances of the Shiv/Tom relationship, who I believe have a genuine love and connection. Humiliatingly uncynical, because that's where my head is at, and explores a possible avenue for the trauma that befell Shiv prior to meeting Tom.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“No, Marcia, I really don’t think I can leave her here by herself, plus I wouldn’t want to risk giving Logan whatever Shiv’s come down with,” Tom slumped his body in relief when she finally accepted his excuse, barely saying his goodbyes before ending the call. </p><p>Convincing the ever-suspicious Marcia of something was a laborious task, but he wasn’t lying when he said Shiv was sick, or rather unwell, but not in a way that the Roys would likely recognize as legitimate. He’d arrived home after a half-day at the office to find her worked up over the impending holiday gatherings, but beyond the standard level of agitation he’d grown accustomed to. This was one of her spells, as an old-timey doctor might call it, complete with tears, hand tremors, and the occasional involuntary twitch of her shoulders. I didn’t think you’d be home for a few more hours, she’d said, her voice bashful and childlike, while otherwise quietly accepting his help as he instructed her to count backwards from 100 by three. </p><p>He pattered back into their bedroom, expecting to find his girlfriend still conked out from the Xanax he’d given her hours before, but was delighted to find her laying bleary eyed atop of Mondale, an ever faithful companion. </p><p>“Hey sweetheart,” he crouched to her eye level beside the bed, rubbing large circles into her back, “how are you feeling?” </p><p>“What time is it?” </p><p>“Just after 7:00,” he answered. “I called to let the family know we wouldn’t make it to Christmas Eve.” He felt her muscles relax underneath his hand. </p><p>“That’s going to be the most pitiful get-together in all the city,” Shiv mused, thinking of Kendall and Rava’s recent separation with a pang of grief. She wasn’t particularly close to her sister-in-law, or the kids, but their company gave her a sense of ease neither Logan nor her brothers could provide. </p><p>“Well, yeah, with you MIA of course it’ll be,” Shiv smiled. Fuck Rava, fuck all of them; she thought flippantly, she’d found herself a man with the uncanny ability to bring whatever brand of comfort they provided simultaneously. She felt her body begin to shift as Tom climbed into bed with her, realizing that she’d nodded off for a minute. Or an hour, her sense of time was probably shot. He commanded Mondale off the bed and maneuvered her onto his chest, tightening the duvet around her cold, rigid body. He pressed a series of large, loud kisses against her forehead, his hand grazing across it as if to check her temperature. </p><p> “The Xanax really wiped you out,” he observed, alarmed yet relieved. Sharing a bed with Shiv was often akin to lying with the Tasmanian devil, non-stop tossing and turning with the occasional guttural groan as she roused herself from a dream. Between that and his snoring he wagered them quite the sexiest of all bedfellows. He moved them into a sitting position, ready to rouse her back into the land of the living before the night was over. </p><p>“Well I haven’t gotten all nuts like that in a while now, thankfully, so my tolerance might be pretty weak.”</p><p>“You’re not nuts,” he said. </p><p>“Did you know I was pregnant last Christmas?” She asked abruptly. “It’s dumb but watching Grace and Isla open presents together, seeing Roman of all people be smitten with them, that’s when I decided I’d keep her.”</p><p>Her. They both shivered, the elusive little girl they never got to know, but who stuck around long enough for an eight-week NIPT test to learn her sex. Created with a blond, male model-looking staffer after three drinks as Election Night 2016 turned sour, her end-of-the-world, live for the moment style escapism had broader consequences than any misogynist politician could ever hope to. Her apocalyptic Prince Charming was rough, too rough for her tastes, and she’d been ready to purge everything from the last twenty-four hours from her mind. If only. If only not. </p><p>“I romanticize it,” she said. “It ended so quickly, before I could face any of the humiliation that would have gone along with the family finding out, so in my mind everything is idyllic.”</p><p>She’d met Tom on a snowy day in February, two weeks after her taking herself to the ER to confirm a miscarriage, to discuss the upcoming shareholder meeting. Her Dad and Marcia, to their credit, had noticed the changes in her demeanor but attributed it to the lull in her career following all those damned Republican majorities, which Logan was just beaming about. He’d insisted she accompany him to the office, check out the sucker stuck filling in for Bill amidst his conveniently timed vacation. She was too worn out from the seemingly never-ending bleeding and cramps to protest, her brain not conjuring an acceptable excuse. Somehow she’d wound up seated next to Tom, and like an anesthetic her pain began to dull. Sure, she still had the occasional anxiety attack or flashback to her pajamas and sheets being drenched with blood, but little by little they’d sewn her back into a mostly functional human being. </p><p>“Sometimes I dream about her,” he whispered. “Reimagine this last year as one where I not only meet the most beautiful woman in the world but get to feel her little girl kick my palm through your skin, leave the office right at five so I can make you dinner and rock her to sleep,” he paused. “Spend Christmas Eve holed up in bed with her laying on my chest, adjacent her ridiculously hot mother.” </p><p>“You’d go out with a pregnant woman?” Shiv felt hot tears brimming at the corners of her eyes. </p><p>“No, but I’d go out with a pregnant you. Fuck, I’d have asked you out had you entered that boardroom with a stroller full of newborn quintuplets.” She looked at him as though he’d grown three heads, a familiar expression to him. “I’m sure Wambsgans would go great with whatever names you’d pick.” He lifted her chin and pecked her lips, both of them smiling as they kissed. </p><p>“Have I told you that you’re most terrifying person I’ve ever met?” Damn Xanax fueled courage, that wasn’t supposed to be said out loud. </p><p>In no time at all Tom had become her lover, friend, coconspirator, and yes, she thought with a hint of self-loathing, something of a father. An impromptu dinner date to lift her spirits and offer a brief reprieve from the slick, metrosexual assholes she’d dealt with her whole life to the de facto father of the child she’d lost. The child she had planned on bringing up as a single mother in an effort to buck the rules and prove herself. Now he had her fantasizing about squeezing out a set of square-headed quintuplets and nursing them while Tom made dinner and Mondale warmed her feet. She should be disgusted by the thought and yet she isn’t. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. She wants to run. She wants to want to run. She wants to cry, but only so Tom will hold her and comfort her and tell everything is okay. That’s she okay; loveable, beautiful, capable, and safe. That she is those things regardless of her career or the shape of her body (“a very acquired taste” her college boyfriend once said of it, examining her cinched waist and full hips). It was pathetic, humiliating, a sort of emotional support Munchhausen’s, and it’d been affecting her since the day of that damn shareholder meeting. She’d defend herself and say that she’d never been affirmed like that even with all the money and men that surrounded her, but a billionaire heiress pity party would be even more pathetic. </p><p>She realized amidst her internal rambling that Tom hadn’t even responded to her comment, just continued rubbing circles into her back. She’s also just noticing that she’d changed into Tom’s Vikings sweatshirt before her Xanax nap. It was heavenly, so soft and comfortable, she thought bitterly. </p><p>“Do we want to try and salvage what’s left of Christmas Eve? I could get us something to eat,” he said, knowing that she hadn’t eaten all day.</p><p>“That’s sweet, honey, but I’m not even sure I have enough energy to get to the kitchen right now,” she stifled a yawn.</p><p>“I could carry you,” he suggested. </p><p>Fuck it, she thought, accepting his offer. He put his arms around her back and under her knees, slowly lifting her from the bed into his arms. She instinctively gripped her arms around his neck, and he placed a tender kiss against her cheek. </p><p>Tomorrow, she’d return to the portrait of a polished, clear-headed woman she demanded of herself. She’d compliment Marcia’s dress, half-hug Kendall’s despondent kids, and brush off whatever sickness Tom concocted for her as a twenty-four bug. She’d do it and she’d do it sincerely, knowing Tom was there to reapply the glue stick to whatever edge she needed touched up. </p><p>But for now, it was good to feel again.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>